The Raiders or the A’s? The Coliseum tug-of-war and Mark Davis’ dwindling timeline

ORLANDO, Fla.—Raiders owner Mark Davis acknowledged that he and the A’s seem to be playing tug-of-war over the future of the Coliseum site and it’s almost impossible to see how both teams win.

Simply put, if the A’s get the 10-year lease extension they are seeking in lieu of a move to San Jose, the Raiders’ push to get a new stadium built on the site in the Coliseum City project would be severely affected.

Or tossed out the window completely.

“That would make it tough for us to build a new stadium on that site,” Davis said Monday during the NFL annual meetings.

Logically, it would be almost impossible to build a football stadium on the site while keeping the old Coliseum open for baseball. That’s if the Coliseum City project even moves past its current theoretical stage.

“Well, it’s complicated,” Davis said.

Davis said he doesn’t want to make it a Raiders-vs.-A’s situation; he just wants a stadium in Oakland.

“We need to get something–both of us really need stadiums, new ones,” Davis said.

“And there’s no blame I don’t think between the A’s and the Raiders or the city or anybody else. We just have to get something done if we can.”

If Davis doesn’t hear more positive news by this summer, he said he will have to consider alternate locations such as Los Angeles.

Asked specifically if East Bay Raider fans have to worry about losing the team to Southern California, Davis mostly demurred answering.

“That’s a tough question–I don’t know how to answer that, to be honest,” Davis said.

Later, he added that East Bay fans don’t have to worry about an LA move “at this time” but pointed out again that the timetable is not a long one.

Jack London Square for the A’s, New Coliseum for the Raiders, Pier 32 for the Warriors.

RaiderCraig

While it probably won’t happen, it seems to be as simple as: A’s continue to play at O.co while a new smallish baseball only stadium is being built on site, and the Raiders share Levi Stadium with the 49ers for the next 5-6 years. Once the Baseball only stadium is built (2-3 years), they can tear down the existing O.com and build a football stadium for the Raiders (2-3 years). I’m guessing they could get both stadiums complete in 5-6 years, seeing as the current site is already zoned for this sort of thing and they have the overflow lots in and around the existing coliseum. The thing that will probably hold everything up, the Raiders and A’s seem to want the city of Oakland to flip the bill, and considering Oakland is broke, it’s not going to happen if public money is involved. I’m sure the 49ers wouldn’t mind an extra 10 games a year at their stadium to help pay for all the loans and keep the restaurants and hotels in and around the stadium filled when the 49ers aren’t playing.

Rodrigues_Islander

Here it comes again … Raiders move back to LA.
The only way that doesn’t happen is if Mark Davis sells the team to an ownership group who wants to keep the team in the Bay Area and build a new stadium. on the equity alone Davis stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars.